she real cool

vendredi, septembre 30, 2005

I wasn't even gonna blog today but I just listened to this song courtesy of Ian @ Different Kitchen. I can't front if I was 18 and in ATL at an AUC party or basking in the sunshine of Lower Manley on a fall friday afternoon or at Kaya (now Vision) on a Sat eve. I'd bounce to this but...

By 20 I had basically put away childish things. Mostly. I used to run off at the mouth about errybody and people fucking loved me for it. But then I was like, "this shit is foul; I'm moving on." I used to bounce to songs like this then I was like, "this shit is self-annihilating; I'm moving on" (except if "Ain't No Fun" came on during the old school set at the club 'cause it has sentimental value in that it's the sound of '93 and '93 was very good year though not as good as '95, word to L-boogaloo). I used to run with fun-loving shade sheisters, I used to spend all my cash at Phipps, Lenox and Wish or Mango if I was in Paris or Otto Tootsi Plohound, Transit, and Atrium if I was in NYC or Zebra Club if I was in Seattle but then I was like "this is foolish" and I moved on to running my Gold Amex* up at aforementioned stores. (Real money is for bills. I realize this now that I have them.) After life + Dr. Stanley + the professor of Hip Hop and The African American Experience class at Morehouse + Feminism + good ole conversation + research on fellow AUC'ers + Spelman sisterhood + ADW + everything my mama and the village done taught me I awakened me to the error of my ways. Me, Malika, and Danielle started awakening our peers and lil' bros and sisters from ATL to Arkansas to 106th & Park about the errors of our collective ways. Not laying blame but taking ownersip (errors are part of life; stubbornly refusing to correct them is death) and stating plain facts. Just the act of reading a lyric divorced from its so seductive beat is enough for a lot of people but we did much more: "This is how it is. How does this make you feel? Think about it." No editorializing. Demystifying stats on violence against women in the teen demographic and their relationship to muse sick-n-hour mess age. Put some lyrics on lynching over that "Oochie Wally"** beat. See if you'll dance (in about two seconds the answer will be a Jigga tongue rolled "Yep!"). Anyway we've moved on left the Spelman womb, the umbilical cord to "you can do it" and "love is the message" cut. "Hoe Sit Down?" It's funny in a "this nigga is foolish" type way. I loved CR's "Get Lower" till Moya informed me it was on Crunk Juice and not just interludes on his instant classic Never Scared album and I know Lil' Jon's consumers don't get it. "Hoe Sit Down?" Nigga please. Shut the fuck up.

Get a job and get your ass in somebody's universityAnd roll your youngun in a nursery

Yes we extracted com's lyric from sexist context and used for our aims. I've been waiting since 1996 for the appropriate moment to use this line so thank you Maceo.

KATSINA, Nigeria - Dr. Kees Waaldijk began surgery shortly before 10 a.m. one recent Saturday in a cement-walled operating room in this city near Nigeria's northern border. More than five hours later, orderlies carried the last of four girls to the recovery ward. In the near-90 degree heat, Dr. Waaldijk's light blue surgical garb had turned dark with sweat.

"We are finished for the day," he barked.

It was the last thing the dozen girls who squatted in the open-air corridor outside wanted to hear. Leaping up, tracking wet footprints and soaked skirts across the floor, they besieged the towering, white-haired surgeon, holding out orange case files, their names scrawled on them in black marker.

"Big eyes, with a question mark: 'When is it my turn?' " he said later in his office, filled with medical books, suture-filled suitcases and damp socks and T-shirts hung on chairs to dry. He held up his hands. "The eyes are following you everywhere you go. I tell them it is one man, two hands and many women."

What brings the girls to Dr. Waaldijk - and him to Nigeria - is the obstetric nightmare of fistulas, unknown in the West for nearly a century. Mostly teenagers who tried to deliver their first child at home, the girls failed at labor. Their babies were lodged in their narrow birth canals, and the resulting pressure cut off blood to vital tissues and ripped holes in their bowels or urethras, or both.

Now their babies were dead. And the would-be mothers, their insides wrecked, were utterly incontinent. Many had become outcasts in their own communities - rejected by their husbands, shunned by neighbors, too ashamed even to step out of their huts.

Until this decade, outside nations that might be able to help effectively ignored the problem. The last global study, in which the World Health Organization estimated that more than two million women were living with obstetric fistulas, was conducted 16 years ago.

Nor has a recent spate of international attention set off an outpouring of aid. Two years of global fundraising by the United Nations Population Fund, an agency devoted in part to improving women's health, has netted only $11 million for the problem.

The number of new cases is far outpacing repairs - not just here, but in other sub-Saharan nations like Kenya, Malawi and Uganda. Despite recent strides, said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the Population Fund's executive director, "at the current rate of action it will take decades to end fistula."

Few doubt that the problem is most concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty and rudimentary health care combine with traditions of home birth and early pregnancy to make women especially vulnerable. In Nigeria alone, perhaps 400,000 to 800,000 women suffer untreated fistulas, says the United Nations.

Dr. Waaldijk , a 6-foot-4, 64-year-old Dutchman who rides a circuit nine months each year from his home in the Netherlands to Babbar Ruga Hospital here and others in rural Nigeria, says he has operated on 15,000 fistulas in 22 years here, repairing nearly all of them.

Obstetric fistulas are easily prevented by Caesarean sections. But in sub-Saharan Africa - excluding the region's richest nation, South Africa - the average doctor serves 6,666 patients and villages are often linked by little more than dirt paths. Many rural women labor fruitlessly for days before being taken, sometimes in a cow-pulled cart, to a road leading to a hospital.

Dr. Waaldijk remembers one patient well. She managed to push out only her baby's head before collapsing from exhaustion in her hut, he said. Her brother carried her, balanced on a donkey, to a road, where a bus driver demanded 10 times the usual fare to take her to a hospital. She half-stood, half-sat for the trip, her dead baby's head between her legs, her urethra ripped open.

"This is what is happening," the doctor said. "Nobody will believe it." The fistulas point to the broader plight of millions of African women: poverty; early marriage; maternal deaths; a lack of rights, independence and education; a generally low standing. One in 18 Nigerian women dies during childbirth, compared with one in 2,400 in Europe, the Population Fund says. A larger share of African women die in childbirth than anywhere else in the world.

Were it widely available, the United Nations agency states, a $300 operation could repair most fistulas. But Mozambique, with 17 million people, has just three surgeons who consistently perform those operations. Niger, population 11 million, has but six, the organization reported in 2002.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with 137 million people, has eight fistula repair centers, and Dr. Waaldijk, a Health Ministry employee, said he had trained 300 doctors in fistula surgery. Once trained, though, many leave for better paid jobs in wealthier nations.

Nearly 600 women showed up, some arriving in busloads, when international and Nigerian officials staged a 14-day treatment campaign at Babbar Ruga and three other hospitals in February. Three hospitals ran out of beds. The youngest patient was 12.

The oldest, more than 70, had been incontinent for a half-century.

"The health care system is not coping with it," Dr. Waaldijk said. "You go to a hospital and they have no working facilities. You say, 'You need this, this, this and this.' You go back. No water! No water in the whole hospital! You go back again, no lights!

"So where do you start?"

Dr. Waaldijk started here at Babbar Ruga Hospital 22 years ago, after a misspent youth followed by a lucrative surgical practice in Europe mixed with public health stints. Only when he came to this dusty town of open sewers and fickle electricity did he find his life's calling, he said.

With help from government and private donors, he slowly built Babbar Ruga into one of Africa's two biggest fistula centers, a small city of yellow concrete wards and hostels that typically houses 200 patients.

Those recovering from his surgery walk awkwardly about the grounds, catheters emptying between their legs into plastic buckets in girlish colors of pink and purple. Relatives camp by the dozens under the trees amid cooking pots, straw mats and tea kettles.

Dr. Waaldijk still hauls sutures, needles and anesthetics in big black suitcases from Holland to be certain of a reliable supply. He operates partly by the sun, wheeling his surgery table across the room to catch the best light, and personally logs his results on a laptop protected by a backup generator.

More than a third of his patients are 15 or younger; another 30 percent are between 15 and 20. His records indicate that most were married at 11 or 12, before menstruation. Nearly all bring with them tales of hardship, suffering and rejection.Safiya, 23, was in the post-op ward after living for a year in the hut of a traditional healer who tried to cure her by stuffing potions into her vagina. Daso, 23, said she had leaked urine and feces for five years. Her husband divorced her.

Rumasau, 16, unluckily began labor on a Saturday, when her local hospital had no physician for her. She had to wait until the following Tuesday for an emergency Caesarean section - not an uncommon delay here, Dr. Waaldijk said.

For the few who get help, fistula surgery is life-changing. Zainabu Ado, 19, said she had leaked urine and feces for a year before coming to Babbar Ruga.

"People ran from me, even members of my own family," she said during an interview in Sululu, a tiny village hidden on a barely passable dirt road across the border in Niger. "My husband abandoned me. Nobody talked to me. Nobody visited me. For that whole year I stayed indoors."

At an impromptu gathering this month, Ms. Ado arrived resplendent with beaded jewelry, and her neighbors made room for her on straw mats in the sand.

Problems linger, she said. Her husband never bothered to divorce her, leaving her unable to remarry. She suffers a slight limp from lingering nerve damage. But compared with a fistula, such troubles are nits. "I am completely healed," she said, flashing a smile.

Her village is too small to appear on any map. Yet she is neither Sululu's first nor last fistula patient. She heard of Babbar Ruga Hospital from a neighbor who had undergone fistula surgery there. Ms. Ado, in turn, told Gide Gero.

Four feet 10 and nut-brown, Gide arrived at the hospital in September and spread her mat in the corridor outside the operating room. Her eyes were lively, her smile gap-toothed. She looked perhaps 12, but said she was 16.

Isolation and the traditions of her Fulani tribe governed her upbringing. She never went to school. Once she reached puberty, each suitor was allowed to specify that a decorative design be carved in her face as a sign of his interest.

She said she had fallen in love with one, but her grandfather had insisted that she marry her much older cousin, whom she did not meet till her wedding day. At 13, her grandparents decided, it was high time that she settle down. "Two reasons," her grandmother said in an interview. "She had started menstruating. And she had developed breasts."

Early this July, she started labor on a bed of bound sticks covered with a straw mat. For two days she struggled. Finally it took five hours for two cows to pull her family's wooden cart to the nearest hospital, 10 miles away.

There Gide labored for two more days before managing to expel a dead baby boy. When she discovered the next day that she could not control her urine, she said, she was dumbfounded. As a solution, she learned to wait as long as eight hours before allowing herself a sip of water.

Her fistula, it turned out, was a small one. Twenty minutes after she climbed atop Dr. Waaldijk's operating table, she was stretched out in the first bed in the recovery room, her grandmother by her side.

"She will be fine," Dr. Waaldijk predicted. Fine, that is, unless her next labor begins in the same village, far from medical treatment, as is all too likely. In which case, he said, her affliction will simply repeat itself.

"To be a woman in Africa," Dr. Waaldijk said as he stitched her last sutures, "is truly a terrible thing."

dimanche, septembre 25, 2005

Bopping over the Brooklyn Bridge this eve listening hard (intermittently, with eyes closed, to the dismay of cyclists and fellow pedestrians) I took a break courtesy of East Flastbush Project and G-Unit hijacked E&J sippers. Thought to myself: I hope he doesn't candy coat em. The 112 collab was bad enuff.

Then I got tired and I hopped on the B52 perching on one of dem raised seats at the back of the bus. Please don't tell my mama. To her the back of the bus is the exclusive domain of the ragamuff and ruffian. Funny how her ex hubby/my eco-transport friendly father, when not biking or ole BMWing it, steps straight to the rear on Joe Metro, shades on, to stare at passengers who catch a glimpse of his unsuspecting eyes curiously swallowing them whole beneath not quite opaque lenses.

My perch offered me an enviable view of Sunday evening Fulton Mall patrons exclusively brown and black except for that gay couple striding too many steps ahead of their adopted brown and black brood. Snowman T-Shirts galore. I would have cried but I ran out of tears a few weeks ago and not even copious consumption of Volvic will bring them back. One weekend soon I will gorge on much ballyhooed Framboise in the company of they-know-who-they-are and see if I can get the rivers to flow.

Trap or Die. A faulty syntactical relationship if I've ever said one and I, malaprop queen, have mumbled many, though PBK need not never know. The former necessitates the latter. Trap andDie. Conjoined in equanimity not contradistinction. No self determination here just championed, stunted-into-existence fate. Trap=Die.

Last sunday @ African American Day Parade revelers demonstrated an exuberant appreciation for Chris Brown's "Run it"(okay), Juelz Santana (no surprises there) and Snowman t-shirts(???). Fulton St. and Adam Clayton Powell on one accord: death is an accelerated must.

mercredi, septembre 21, 2005

She looks like a Vegetarian

Ce soir, I strode into SOB's right on time for Goapele's ascent to the stage but 45 minutes past when I was s'posed to meet dear one who relying on brief Oaktown songstress encounter at Joe's last week and fortuitous hint at shoulder graze at SOB's that night pronounced aforepictured artist an herbivore and dear one's unbeknownst betrothed. "Nymphesque!" decried dear one after laying eyes on her face. I concur. She's tiny but strangely elongated. Not stubby at all just small like she's s'posed to be not like heavy-eyed dem.

I don't think I'm s'posed to be but apparently it's a increasingly popular subtractive aim among my demographic. La Paresse, l'épuisement and good ole fashioned edge-consciousness have halted obsessive compuslive Jack Palance-ation which will recommence for svelte stunterie in time for grand yet undetermined New Year's plans.

The spock-eared vocalist's dimples glitter even when she isn't smiling. How refreshingly bizarre! "Closer" endeared me to her even though her caseless cd lays scratched and abandoned somewhere on my hardwood floors. She's got plenty get right and gut enough to sweetly serenade but she's almost awkward on stage. Not Ashanti goofy. Dissimilar vein. She could benefit from a choreographer --no!-- a movement specialist to expand possibilty of motion and get her body as comfortable in the atmosphere as her voice.

mardi, septembre 20, 2005

The Unbroken

She was helped in the struggle by the angels; celestial forces placed each thing in its place, thus allowing her to give of her best...Her companions say: "She's so lucky!" But she knows that "luck" is knowing to look around her and to see where her friends are, because it was through their words that the angels were able to make themselves heard.

Providentially, I have dear ones. Dearer still. But they couldn't be any more removed. Where I loathe they love. They pass on lessons learned on the battlefield. I pass on lessons gleaned betweeen the binding. I hate to hate right now knowing that they wish me the opposite but sooner or later i'll be what The Prophet says. On break from self-flagellation my name's declaimed and it rings true. I sign checks with it, irredeemable on account of my shite cursive. Mrs. Tracy's gold stars were reserved for master multiplicators so I locked down my times table to the detriment of my penmanship. Integrity of nomenclature aside, my durable struggle is not so noble as Kunta's, never will be. Master and enslaved all wrapped up in one body brown. Call me an emotional cutter. Call me a coward for the bloodless masochism. Call me crazy. Call me loved.

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass...

Today's seraphs: L, D & T. The universe never ceases to surprise me. A defy definition from L, a just called with these three words from D, presence despite my persistent absentia from T & fam.

**TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 20th 6:30-8:30**New School University Campus/The Lang Student Center is located at 55 West 13th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues on the north side of the street. Multipurpose Room, Ground Floor.

Toni Blackman's participant-centered vibe-session creates a space for every MC, every style, and every voice. Build your skills, vibe with other female hip-hop heads and let your voice be a part of the movement to elevate hip-hop music and culture. Historically, there's been only one female per crew, but we in the cipher believe that our collective power is what is needed to make a real difference in the numbers.

Ladies, don't sit by the wayside complaining about the lack of females in the game get in the game and get open....

Great musicians practice and go to jam sessions. Great athletes train. Tight MC's have to put in the work to become tight MC's...

Female voices will be heard, but fellas are welcome to watch the women work. Guys, come out and support! You don't need to be an MC to come.

No RSVP needed to attend. All ages--14 to 44. For more info, please call the Institute for Urban Education at 212-229-5100 x2266 or visit our website at www.lang.edu/iu or EMAIL: toniblackmanevents@Yahoo.com

DIRECTIONSThe Lang Student Center is accessible by a variety of subway lines:The 4, 5, 6, N, R, Q, W or L trains to 14th St. and Union Square. Walksouth to 13th St., then west (turn right) to 55 West 13th St. (between5th and 6th Ave.)

The A, B, C, E, F, V and S trains to West 4th St. Walk north along 6thAvenue to 13th St. Walk east (turn right) on 13th St. to 55 West 13th St.

The 1, 9, 2 or 3 trains to 14th St. Walk east to 6th Ave. and take aright. Walk to 13th St. and turn left to 55 West 13th St.The PATH train from New Jersey stops at 9th St. and 6th Ave. Walknorth to 13th St., then east (turn right).

Mark your calendars for 10/18/ & 11/15 6:15-9:15pm (including set up and clean up). Same Location.

vendredi, septembre 16, 2005

Rhymefest--aka the exceedingly charming bubble-headed chi-city ghostwriter with the Biggie lisp and the Kanye flow (or is it vice versa)--at CMJ/Room Service Showcase last night to a smattering of these two feministing clap-happy hands' applause:

+Expressed dismay towards the administration (them) for (un)handling of Katrina.

+Explains that he is not done yet.

+Expresses dismay at audience(us) for listening, supporting, affirming Webbie's"Give Me That" and DJay's (of Hustle & Flow Infamy) "Whoop That Trick." The former specifically for the line: "girl don't hold it from me 'cause right now I'll be done strong armed it". Correctly identifies this action as rape. The latter he says should have never been a song. Connects the consumption of this music to the rapes in the bathroom of the Superdome. Exemplifies understanding of rape culture and how hip hop fits in. Is completely accessible. Everyone, a lot of industry folk and internet dudes, are nevertheless quiet. I was clapping. Folks is silent. I am clapping.

THURSDAY, Sept. 15 (HealthDay News) -- In a somewhat unexpected finding, societal male dominance over women -- patriarchy -- may help explain why men have a lower life expectancy than women worldwide.

British researchers analyzed rates of female murders and male death rates from all causes in 51 countries in Europe, Asia, Australasia, and North and South America. The prevalence of violence against women was used to indicate the extent of patriarchal control in each of the countries. Socioeconomic factors were also taken into consideration.

The study found that women lived longer than men in all 51 countries. The study also found that those countries with higher rates of female murders (indicating higher levels of patriarchy) also had higher rates for male death and shorter male life expectancies, compared to countries with lower female murder rates, the researchers said.

In fact, statistical analysis showed that variations between countries in rates of violence against women accounted for close to half (49 percent) of the variation in male death rates, the researchers noted.

"Our data suggest that oppression and exploitation harm the oppressors as well as those they oppress," researchers at the University of Liverpool concluded.

They noted that the higher death rate and shorter life expectancy among men is "a preventable social condition, which can potentially be tackled through global social policy."

For example, changes can be made in the way that young males are socialized into patriarchal gender roles, such as the emphasis on risk taking, aggression and suppression of emotions, the researchers said.

The findings appear in the current issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

jeudi, septembre 15, 2005

I have ownership in the tragedy of New Orleans. To be sure, I did not summon Katrina from the Gulf and, unlike the federal government, I could not have responded in ways that would have saved lives. I have no buses or planes or helicopters--no power. And yet, there is no denying that my silence on the tragedy of poverty in this nation contributed to the day-to-day conditions that made masses of Black people in New Orleans victims of the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history.

All of us have ownership in this tragedy: rap artists, preachers, politicians, magazine publishers, athletes, celebrities, corporate executives, leaders in all fields, college students, and college professors. We have ownership because we have not screamed about the abuse, neglect and oppression of the working class poor in our communities. We have not screamed and we have not organized to effect change.

mercredi, septembre 14, 2005

12 Pt Smile*

In sentiment. Mood eviscerated. Registered in good faith (cashless until I hit up a WAMU ATM) for Women's Writer's Workshop at Imani House. Introductory workshop wuz this eve. Danced out of sleapy headnessness from 6:30-9:00. I'm tired again but really really excited. I believe in signs and energy and then my sensitivity gets out the way carrying my intuition along with it so I sail by the flattened seat of my Juicy Jeans and then I'm reminded as to what a sign looks like and I can't help but stop and smile.

Exercise 1: What Stops Your Writing?I want to say love stops it. Not that I even fully understand what it is. Love. But it is the first thing that comes. Always. Love is. If writing isn't. My case in point. Love isn't.

Spite? I don't think I have much of handle on that. I'm compassionate and struggle with settling up with debtors. Love exists in excess for situations that subtract from clear headedness and easy breathing. This is why I cannot. Right? Rather an explantion of its challenge. So I am trying to love both ways, in and out, cause love isn't when it is not. I used to be able to write in lack, nagging sadness, but that time is past.Exercise 2: The Itch?I celebrate the impalpable touch and prosletyze the light into heavy handed men until it arrives slithery but before long annoying. The slight tickle of dress rehearsed fingertips. Ennui. Honestly, I delight in palpitating heavy handedness, dammit, like a back hand without the smack underwritten by a fuzzy handprint. A blushing document. Exhibit A. You were here.

I am dissatisfied with my belly. Must join NYSC. Crunch, Buckhead outpost, played out in '02. I'm not going there to socialize anyway but flatten, tighten, erase. But I'm thinking this might be the real new workout plan.

*I jacked this post title from a fellow workshopper and NYU grad student whose condense poem had us all sittin' sideways.

+And we are once again humbled by the other womb and the most published HBCU professor Dr. Gloria Wade Gayles who conceived, spearheaded and drives SIS and is committed to nurturing young black women and telling our stories. Dr. G and my Spelman sisters have a SIS blog and a Katrina blog. Yes. We love Spelman and backstory Dr. G. is some of how I got to Spelman. My father gave me Rooted Against the Wind when I was a hs frosh or soph can't recall. Got my mind set on Spelman for real esp. after reading about her Images of the Women in the Media class which the equally celestial Dr. Tarshia Stanley took over by the time I got there. My 8th grade advisor Kathleen Mahler gave me Johnetta's Conversations: Straight Talk With America's Sister President but prior to that I was an enthusiastic adherent to the Cosby ethic (aka talented tenthism) as well as a devotee of A Different World. Wonderful respite from lifelong only black girldom except in the rare providential occasion there were 2. The rest is herstory. A beautiful one too. Should note Johnetta Cole and them over at Bennett are responding swiftly to the Katrina crisis. Spelman's taking students too. Donate to their fund or Oxfam or Habitat for Humanity the efforts of MXG but maybe not The Red Cross. Ain't nobody see them helping folk in N.O., they were shade sheist after 9/11 and they are def in bed with our corrupt administration.

+Listening to Raheem Devaughn while reading The Game (yes i n i bought it) is a very wierd experience. The Game is fantastically intriguing manipulative manual of lame tricks for every lame man/boy's imbedded lamosity. The Love Experience a fantastically magical tome of endearment. Yes I was deep in REM. I'd liken the Devaughn/Strauss mash-up to when by wonders of incongruity "You & I" trails "Xxplosive" on your iPod's shuffle mode or "Flipside" feauturing Freeway's not so gentle seductive bark "Pull down your jeans bitch" precedes "Posession." or better yet the goosebumpy "Protection." Must Repeat. Wierd.

*commercial seen on Comedy Central**Kurt Vonnegut to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show

mardi, septembre 13, 2005

PM to AM*

I left the hair shop saturday morn thinking it could have been the most beautiful day in the world. A dear corporate serf called to cancel lunch and a couple of my curls fell in dissapointment. Instead of resting exhausted limbs I called the crew to meet me at Barbuto. We lingered, between Jane and 12th, shaded from the sweet sun in the open air garage turned eatery then marched across town with Cliquot laboriously toting a just picked up package of goodies shipped from a financially secure family member in H-town. Broken Flowersfollowed. Didn't realize the Coffee & Cigarettes dude was behind it. D, disgusted with my frat boy film sensibilities, made me see the meditation on banal caffeine and nicotine fueled encounters. Joie Lee was in it and I saw her on Fulton on my way home from work today headachy from little sleep and an iced vanilla soy latte. Anyway, I don't really like Bill Murray but whatever I'm kinda enamored with the juxtaposition of brokeness and flowers. After the interminable commercials/previews it began quietly (and facilitated some ten dollar sleep). Literally. There was no fucking dialogue. Standard screenplays are 200 pages. This one had to be 50 at most. Jeffrey Wright sounded like a white dude doing a fucked up arab accent. He was supposed to be Jamaican. And I swear by that dude and not just because he flirted with me at the 7th Ave Key Food a year a half ago when I used to live by myself in a lovely studio on Garfield Place next to a horrid blackish man with a wierd accent who yelled a lot. Sometimes at me. So that was Saturday. A good day. I am grateful for my day's companions. Celestial beings.

Sunday was the regular routine after which I didn't nap but tidied and then straphanged it into the city to galavant with the globetrotting out of towner and the aforementioned Cliquot. We walked to Table 50 first which wasn't even open--I'm not fucking with 50 any more not that I was ever a devotee--then cabbed it to PM. Made our way in expecting unjumpoffedness but were welcomed by raucous revelry and Kamaal the Abstract dropping a bunch of Tribe joints. OK. But as quick as I could down a French martini and pee pee, 'tip dropped "Award Tour" and dropped out of sight for the rest of the eve which was cool. His back ups handled it. A lil' Philadelphia "fuck niggas up laugh about it" Freeway, a fair amount of Kanye (btw Miri stopped by for an impromptu performance), some new Pharrell that wasn't nobody feelin' but the G4 manipulating drop not exactly on the onester, plenty pitbull, jeezy to indifferent reception, Dipset to glorious exuberance, Luther, Alicia Myers and some other shit that made me smile. Not really the most negro spot but what trendy spots are.

After 3 seconds of grown up jobedness I'm officially over 9-5erie. 7:45am wake up call precludes gregarity 'til break of dawn and my check's spent by the time I get it 'cause shopping on my lunch break is what gets me through the day. Gracias to the two women, mother and sis, superwomen who sheltered me from work so I could focus on being smart. It's such a shame geniusness didn't work out.

*As I explained to Juicy via phone, I am a slave to unclichédness, which necessitates skating backwards a lot of the time and helps account for my permanent full body bruise so naturally I took the Christina Milián song that popped into my mouth saturday flipped it and reversed it.

dimanche, septembre 11, 2005

When the storm remains distantWe are heroes of complacencyPuffed chest and swollen prideWe hate ourselves in waysOnly the deepest love could recognize

When the storm remains distantThere is no such thing as usThere is only dollar and dynamiteGunpowder and fiery GodThe churches are filled with women and childrenThe men pray only in case of emergencyWe worship a foreign truthAnd only death will stamp our passport

When the storm remains distantThere is no afterlifeMost die unbornMost live unlovedDisappointment takes on new names and costumesThe future is stillborn and disfiguredThe womb becomes an airtight safeDarkness swallows darkness

When the storm remains distantNothing is as isSongs are opiatesSleep is the burial ground of dreamsHappiness is a lieSex is where love is not

When the storm remains distantWe are unreminded and dare to forgetSchool is a fashion showViolence is comfort foodFamily is nothingAnd nothing is real

When the storm remains distantNiggas are free to be NiggasNiggers, Black, you name it

Anything but one thingEverything but nothingEven with a shitload of platinumWrapped around his neckLike a southern tree gone petrifiedScrew face pearly gate-mouthTangled nectar of the stars

When the storm remains distantStars are retired drug dealers nicknamed GodRapists with pretty voicesAnd anyone but anyone who shines

When the storm remains distantThe sun is flawless in its magnitudeThe heavens reflect breath of angelsThe people bask in themselvesThe storm is forgotten

When the storm is forgottenThe waters, 'though they rise,Fail to threatenThe people march backwardsfrom ashes to ashen,Whiplash, car crash, Cash Money,Some Niggas eat diamonds for breakfastPursue cheap labor, Enslave God

When the storm is forgottenPoets are meteorologistsBehold, the farmers almanacThe sheep wake up and congregateThe litany begins

Sipping Rosé by the wessyde highway, the collective conversation sunk from buoyant to toxically thick. Redemptively. I am awaiting my Exxon Valdez. Major and final. Not that I am unconcerned with environmental impact. I just wanna walk away in perfect condition. Condition perfect. Mes amis aussi. And I'm willing to sacrifice a few oilslick birds and tough skinned amphibs. I'd have to say it was a good day, Rosé and sorbet, but I am aiming for grandiosity motherf#@kers.

"No one should ever ask themselves that: Why am I unhappy? The question carries with it the virus that will destroy everything. If we ask that question, it means we want to find out what makes us happy. If what makes us happy is different from what we have now then we must either change once and for all or stay as we are feeling even more unhappy."

"My yard is full of dandelions and I'm blessed because I have flowers. I have no green thumb. What if we could do the same thing with people, neighborhoods and anything? What if you just changed the way you looked at something and then you change it's entire meaning, not only for it but for you as well."

"...And could be cherished! To be cherished was the dearest wish of the heart of Maud Martha Brown and sometimes when she was not looking at dandelions (for one would not be looking at them all the time, often there were chairs and tables to dust or tomatoes to slice or beds to make or grocery stores to be gone to, and in the colder months there were no dandelions at all), it was hard to believe that a thing of only ordinary allurements--if the allurements of any flower could be said to be ordinary--was as easy to love as a thing of heart catching beauty."

vendredi, septembre 09, 2005

It’s enough to make you holler out likeWhere the fuck is Sir Bono and his famous friends now?Don’t get it twisted man I dig you tooBut if you ain’t about the ghetto then fuck you tooWho care about Rock & Roll when the babies can’t eat foodListen homie man this shit ain’t cool

Mathematical facts.

MP3 mined from SoulSides~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This just in:

Everybody loves the sunshine but not all can bask in it's rays even when armed in ultra violet deflective melanin. I spoke with Roy Ayers today finishing up an interview cut short a month ago. His energy is the feeling you get when vibe out to his music. Shoo bee doo. For real, for real. With the taut numbness I had managed (with loving help) to shake by Wednesday escalating, Mr. Ayers brought me back to one. It makes me think of how ludicrous if aesthetically pleasing it be to make a song that makes all the dope boyz go crazy. Make a song to bring them back to themselves, back to life, fuck it, back to reality which although hard is more than trappin'.

I love Mary J. Blige. I have loved her since she sported silver lamé bra top and matching leggings to remind me of a love I had yet know. I got a flash back, unh, counter attack. Mary killed it on the BET telethon. She traded the VH1 Divas Live holy ghost harlem shakery, for herself. She belted. She balled. Tearing through her delivery of "My Life" with Katrina revised lyrics. It was so real. Mary is near and dear to me not cause she was there for me in '95 and '97 and many other moments but because SHE IS when a bout with addiction, ghetto lineage, tatted upness, and gold toothness, scardom, formal educationalessness, and unrefutable blacknessness would she say that she isn't.

jeudi, septembre 08, 2005

Preface: I was gonna spend some more quality time with Gwen, her daughter Maud really, but there will always be plenty of time for that. Time I must always personally make, absorbent as I am, so that I don't go crazzzy.

I enjoyed your interview, during which you emphasized that "Hustle" is not just about a pimp trying to become a rapper, but the saga of a man trying to make a better way for himself.

Then you brought up New Orleans.

Principally, you remarked that the Hurricane Katrina victims in that city were waiting on someone to give them something, instead of doing for themselves.

I noticed both how Mr. Letterman looked at you as he graciously wrapped the interview segment and the deafening, momentary hush that befell the audience. Perhaps they were shocked by what you said. I was.

Evacuee Dianne Stafford: "They blew the levee to save the city…" Saying a barge broke the levee. She is from St. Bernard Parish. "More expensive places were saved at the expense of the neighborhoods that aren't as valuable… Rebuilding Bourbon Street matters more to the government… that's what mattered to Governor Blanco…"

+Govm’t sanitizing Katrina reportage?! Yes, we already knew that but now even seeming Hawaiian Tropic spokeperson, Brian Williams of NBC, among others, is speaking up.

mardi, septembre 06, 2005

Dispatch from the Southland

...can we please stop using the word refugee!! I plan to call the New York Times who should really know better. I spent 13 years with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the people displaced by this hurricane ARE NOT refugees! (Unless of course they're going to change the rules again) "Refugee" has a negative connotation as well. But, for the record and according to the United Nations Convention (1951) a refugee is, "...owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such a fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." So, what's a better word? How about, SURVIVORS.

Oddly enough, ill suited as the term regugee is to those who endured Katrina as they "are not outside the country of their nationality," the Katrina survivors and, well, the rest of us have reason to hold "a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion"

She also notes:

There are few African Americans that are not touched in some way by this disaster. Most of us either have family connections to Louisiana, Alabama or Mississippi or know of someone who does. We've learned from people who are coming into our area that the devastation is beyond anyone's imagination or words and the death toll will be shocking.

"I thought we were going to die out there," Bernadette Washington said. "We had to sleep on the ground. used the bathroom in front of each other. Laying on that ground. I just couldn't take it. I felt like Job."

My ma subscribes to some daily bible verse service and forwards them to me. This was todays:

My head hit the pillow at around 6 yesterday morn. The sun, refracting through my bedroom window, singed my face soon after. I didn't get up 'til almost 10 though. Just enough time for me to shower and trek uptown to catch the sermon at Riverside.

When I arrived, at a quarter 'til noon, I bounced down the steps of the balcony--i bop when happy, sad or anywhere between--and knocked knees with an elderly half sleep man with a Riverside provided hearing aid in his ear as I scooted onto the second row pew. The guest preacher Kim Bobo only a few introductory remarks into her "Labor of Love" message had already lulled him to sleep. Moments later my sister traipsed in with her own hearing aid and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wouldn't have to jack the ole unengaged man in hollow christian ritual this Sunday (The sunday before the church had run of out hearing aids relegating my sis to a half hour of fuzz and solitary reflection).

We sat and listened and I won't summarize or repeat 'cause I wouldn't do the ecumenical activist justice. But I will higlight two biblical passages, the cornerstone of a message that reclaimed the stones that the builder refused.

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments...are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Romans 13:8-14So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, "O wicked ones, you shall surely die," and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

Ezekiel 33:7-11

I don't know how to turn the wicked from their evil ways and I am not so audacious to not count myself among their exponential numbers but I do know that I have no idea how to turn them/us from their/our ways, wicked as they are. I do believe that admonitions and action are necessary and I know that it will save us, not in the sense of a gilded pearly gated afterlife (I haven't been able to wrap my mind around a post mortem heaven or hell yet), but in that it will ensure that our living is not in vain.

Communion came. Long ceremony that it is we sang a few hymns. One of which I remember from being raised in this church compelling me to do the black woman sanctified sway. You know that celestine side to side rock occasionally accessorized with some mlk/funeral home fan fluttering. The song escapes me now. It's late or rather early Mon. morn but the context flashed me back to another hymn as likely to ring from the nave of my progressive but stiff multiracial church as an amen corner. "Sit At His Feet and Be Blessed." It's funny the melody lingers on but I cannot remember the lyrics outside of sunday service like its some sort of embodied knowledge only accessible in proper context. But the chorus I remember:

The wicked shall cease from troublingThe weary shall be at restAnd all the saints of(and?) the angelswill sit at his feet and be blessed

This is the promise, right? Deliverance after life. Horrid as life may be, look forward to fleshlessness. Transcendence. In so many words what was told to slaves. It's comforting yes but its an opiate too since it may or may not be true. Forgive me, God, if I speak out of turn but I am inclined to agree with Marley whose revolutionary hymn cautions: "If you knew what life was worth, you would look for yours on earth." The realest shit he ever wrote? What is certain is that we all have this life, whether or not its ALL we have, but we live and breath experiencing heaven or hell in proportion to our portion of love. Love at the hands of our neighbors. And I'll fast and pray and try and clear my head to listen to God but ain't shit gon' change unless we live our lives in love. Refusing to prophet at the expense of others then patting oneself on the back for trickling down a pittance of one's ill gotten gain. Removing them old people wrap around sunglasses that obscure the poverty and despair in our peripheral vision from our sight. Abrubtly, I conclude.

History will never change because of politics or conquests or theories or wars; that's mere repetitions, its been going on since the beginning of time. History will change when we are able to use the energy of love, just as we use the energy of the wind, the seas, the atom.

You Think Our Lives Are Cheap

I find it hard to say, that everything is alrightDon't look at me that way, like everything is alrightCuz my own eyes can see, through all your false pretensesBut what you fail to see, is all the consequencesYou think our lives are cheap, and easy to be wastedAs history repeats, so foul you can taste itAnd while the people sleep, too comfortable to face itHis life so incomplete, and nothing can replace itAnd while the people sleep, too comfortable to face itYour lives so incomplete, and nothing can replace itFret not thyself I say, against these laws of manCuz like the Bible says, His blood is on their handsAnd what I gotta say, and what I gotta say, is rebelWhile today is still today, choose wellAnd what I gotta say, is rebel, it can't go down this wayChoose well, choose well, choose well...

samedi, septembre 03, 2005

She's speaking truth on Larry King. When I get the transcript I will post.

UPDATE!

(I don't think the direct link I put up to the vid is working so just go here. Scroll down and click on the vid of Celine in the righthandside sidebar.)

KING: Joining us now is an old and dear friend, Celine Dion, the musical superstar. She's in her dressing room at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. She will go on stage in about a half hour. She and the director of her wonderful show, a show I've seen, Franco Dragone, have donated by the way, pledged $1 million to the American Red Cross.

What has been your response, Celine, to this? I especially ask this because you're French Canadian from Montreal and New Orleans is a mostly French city.

CELINE DION, SINGER: Correct and I've been there a few times. We've stayed there. I've, you know, filmed videos there and so Rene and I, we've been to New Orleans. And, I have to say, Larry, that and state it as the rest of the world if I may I was watching you behind, there's a television right now, I'm watching and I'm especially waiting like the rest of the world.

I'm waking up in the morning. I'm having a coffee. I barely can swallow it. I come here at Caesar's Palace every night to perform. I barely can sing. But for respect the people who come I am still singing. When I come home at night, my son is waiting for me. I watch television.

Yes, we gave $1 million but what we expect, what I want to look like the rest of the world, I open the television there's people still there waiting to be rescued and for me it's not acceptable. I know there's reasons for it. I'm sorry to say I'm being rude but I don't want to hear those reasons.

You know, some people are stealing and they're making a big deal out of it. Oh, they're stealing 20 pair of jeans or they're stealing television sets. Who cares? They're not going to go too far with it. Maybe those people are so poor, some of the people who do that they're so poor they've never touched anything in their lives. Let them touch those things for once.

The main thing right now it's not the people who are stealing. It's the people who are left there and they're watching helicopters flying over their heads and they're praying. How come it's so easy to send planes in another country to kill everyone in a second, to destroy lives?*

We need to serve our country and for me to serve our country is to be there right now to rescue the rest of the people. We need the cash. We need the blood. We need the support. Right now we need the prayers.

You know when I was hearing a couple of days ago that these things are not reachable it's too full of water, maybe I'm too much like my -- I'm not thinking with my head. I'm talking with my heart. Nobody can open any roofs? The helicopters flying in take two people at a time, take a kayak. Go into those walls.

There's kids being raped at night. They hear gunshots, big guns, what's that? Those people are praying. They're walking. They're like this, hello, do you see us? We're still alive but we're dying. It's terrible.

The full transcript here. I am going to head over to Virgin to pick up a best of... or something.

It is imperative that folk read America Blog for what is really going down. I am stuck (literally in my apt.) in thick disgust and dry eyed sadness.

Several residents of the impromptu shantytown recounted two horrific incidents where those charged with keeping people safe had killed them instead.

In one, a young man was run down and then shot by a New Orleans police officer, in another a man seeking help was gunned down by a National Guard soldier, witnesses said.

Police here refused to discuss or confirm either incident. National Guard spokesman Lt. Col Pete Schneider said "I have not heard any information of a weapon being discharged."

"They killed a man here last night," Steve Banka, 28, told Reuters. "A young lady was being raped and stabbed. And the sounds of her screaming got to this man and so he ran out into the street to get help from troops, to try to flag down a passing truck of them, and he jumped up on the truck's windshield and they shot him dead."

Wade Batiste, 48, recounted another tale of horror.

"Last night at 8 p.m. they shot a kid of just 16. He was just crossing the street. They ran him over, the New Orleans police did, and then they got out of the car and shot him in the head," Batiste said.

The young man's body lay in the street by the Convention Center's entrance on Saturday morning, covered in a black blanket, a stream of congealed blood staining the street around him. Nearby his family sat in shock.

vendredi, septembre 02, 2005

you gotta love it tho, somebody still speak from his soul and wouldn't change by the change or the game or the fame

It seems some are intent, gleeful even, on the end of us. And so I join themasses in saluting a man of conscience in a time of cowardice:

Mike Myers: [dutifully reads canned plea for charity on teleprompter]

Kanye: [abandons teleprompter] "I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family and they say we are looting, you see a white family and they say they are looking for food. And, you know, its been five days because most of the people ARE black. And even for me to complain, I would be a hypocrite because I would turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right to see what is the biggest amount I can give. And just to imagine, if I was down there and those are my people down there. If there is anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help about the way America is set up the help the poor, the black people, the less well off as slow as possible. Red cross is doing as much as they can. We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way. And now they've given them permission to go down and shoot us.

Mike Myers: [stands frozen in horror, decides to pretend nothing happened and stick with the teleprompter]

Kanye: GEORGE BUSH DOES NOT CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE.Mike Myers: [descends into complete panic]

I can see them in the distance falling in second line formation dancing over our corpses to the hijacked beat of our own deceased drummers.

Jesse has his moments. This was one of them.

"[The displaced, debydrated, done dirty Hurricane survivors] look like africans in the hull of a slave ship...We have an amazing tolerance for black pain. We have great tolerenace for black suffering and marginalization."

He was describing dehydrated black folks scattered around the N.O. to Anderson Cooper (whose reporting however incisive refuses to acknowledge how race factored into this tragedy. Class yes but not race. Him and Lou Dobbs seem to think that black Ray Nagin and black senior N.O. officials are solely responsible for what has transpired. They then return to non stop coverage emphasizing how the federal govmt dropped the ball in hurricane preparedness and relief. Whatever. I understand and fume and wish you could taste my bitter pill.)

jeudi, septembre 01, 2005

For they have walked far from the source and are emitting a lesser frequency.

Saul Williams

For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Luke 18:25

To haveSweet lazy lifeChampagne and caviarI hope you'll come and find meCause you know who we areThose who deserve the best in lifeAnd know what money's worthAnd those whose sole misfortuneWas having mountains o' nothing at birth

Tracy Chapman

Spit for the hated, the reviled, the unrefined, the noones, the nobodies, the last in line.

Zach de la Rocha

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help."

Rev. Issac Clark

"It's like they're punishing us."

John Murray

It would seem so John. The fact of blackness your transgression? Poverty maybe?

The politics of race and class. The fact of good & evil. The suggestion that the former pair does in fact impact the latter. This is where Katrina has brought me. I hiccuped hard, lost my breath, heaved rapid fire heartbeats/(aches) when I read this:

Darcel Monroe, 21, a bakery cashier, stammered hysterically as she recounted seeing two young girls being raped in one of the women's bathrooms. "A lot of people saw it but they were afraid to do anything," she said. "He ran out past all of us."

Blessed and damned be the meek. And if they inherit the earth it's only because everyone else ascended to the right hand of God, the creator.

So I think/(thought?). I e-mail my mother.

Me to Mama Dearest:

Dd you hear about the shooting and looting? This is so sad. What's sadder is that many of the people creating this mayhem in this tragedy are black.

Ma to me:

I can understand the looting for food and supplies, not for guns, TVs and other stuff, that's criminal. I'm not excusing this behavior, but this is what you get when you don't train people and educate them, providing them tools to survive and good work ethics. People need to have hope.

And so...

My mistake is I kept sayin' "that was proof that God didn't exist"And you told me, "nah, it was proof that the devil do"